Arab Americans

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT ARAB AMERICANS - PAGE 2

The Siege, a new action movie starring Denzel Washington, Annette Bening and Bruce Willis, raises important issues that should linger long after audiences have left the theater. The film depicts a terrorist threat in New York City. The conspirators turn out to be Arab immigrants. After bombings kill hundreds of people and destroy the FBI headquarters, the president declares martial law, and the U.S. Army arrives in full force. The Army cordons off Brooklyn, where many Arab immigrants live, and imprisons men of Arab ancestry -- regardless of citizenship.

By ANNE E. KORNBLUT and MICHAEL KRANISH The Boston Globe, October 17, 2000

ST. LOUIS -- During the last presidential debate, George W. Bush misstated the number of men facing the death penalty in a Texas murder case, confused two types of discrimination faced by Arab-Americans, and implied the state of Texas spends more on health care for the uninsured than it really does. But Bush suffered little for those missteps, dismissed by aides as honest mistakes. Instead, as the candidates head into their third and final encounter tonight, it is Vice President Al Gore who remains under a microscope.

In all the reports of Arab-American groups demonstrating in support of Lebanon, nowhere is there any mention of their condemning the Hezbollah policy of placing their rockets, launchers and fighters in the midst of civilians, women, children and the aged. Hezbollah places weapons there because civilian deaths or injuries have been a great propaganda victory for it from a gullible world. In truth, responsibility for these casualties belongs to the terrorists, rather than to Israel, which is simply attempting to stop attacks against its civilian population.

What is the furor about profiling from Arab-Americans that you continue to feature? On Nov. 11, I started an overseas trip. I was profiled. Rather than complain, I applauded the security personnel for their conscientious efforts to protect both me and the other passengers on the plane. All of the terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 incidents were Arabs. Who should be profiled? Chinese? Mexicans? Haitians? African-Americans? No, only those who are prone to harm innocent civilians should be subjected to the strictest scrutiny.

Hardly a week goes by without at least one reader asking a really tough question. The latest tough question dealt with a recent column which said that, in a war for survival, the government has not only the right but the duty to intern groups whose loyalties are to our enemies. My argument was that the government's first duty is to protect its people and perpetuate the nation -- and this cannot be done without somebody paying a cost. The internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was an unnecessary cost and a human tragedy because they were loyal to this country and posed no genuine danger.

Edmund R. Hanauer might have seemed somewhat of an enigma, a Jewish man who dedicated his life to working for reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis. Some called him a "self-hater"; others compared him to the Hebrew prophets. "Ned was the most single-minded person I have ever known as far as his passion for justice and peace," said the Rev. Ray Low, a retired Episcopal priest and vice president of Search for Justice and Equality in Palestine/Israel, founded by Dr. Hanauer in 1972.

I am an Arab-American and proud of it. My family has been in the United States for over 100 years. During that time, we have served in every branch of government, and fought in every war in the service of our nation. Like many other Arab Americans I'm proud of my heritage, and work to defend it. At the same time, I am imbued with American values, and work to project them. Last month, I was honored to have been invited by our nation's archivist, Allen Weinstein, to speak as part of the National Archives' "American Conversation Series."

Arab-Americans play a vital role in bridging the gap between the Mideast and the West, Queen Noor of Jordan said in Dearborn, Mich. "We must speak out against those who promote a clash of cultures," she said, speaking to about 1,500 people at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's annual banquet Thursday. "Ours must be a voice of reason of solidarity and of hope." "In countless ways we've already integrated these cultures in our own lives," she said. "Yet the bridge we are building is fragile and threatened by extremists on all sides."

It was serendipitous. On the eve of the Supreme Court's rulings regarding the University of Michigan's two systems of racial preferences, for undergraduate and law school applicants, the Census Bureau reported that Hispanics have supplanted African-Americans as the nation's largest minority. The rulings effectively say universities can use some sorts of judicially monitored racial preferences forever. But demographic facts say race is rapidly becoming more and more irrational -- indeed, unintelligible -- as a basis for government actions.